Petition Launched To Help Stop the Biggest Monkey Breeding Facility in the US
The proposed facility in a small town of Georgia could hold up to 30,000 monkeys who will be sold to be used in animal testing, but the plans are facing criticism from locals, environmentalists, and animal welfare campaigners.
A long-tailed macaque at a breeding facility in Cambodia. Image supplied to Species Unite
Public anger is continuing to grow over controversial plans to build a huge monkey-breeding facility in a small town of Georgia. Now, a petition has been launched by Species Unite to gather together supporters who are against the facility in the hope that it can help stop the plans from moving ahead.
As reported last month, the proposed breeding facility will be capable of holding up to 30,000 monkeys. That number is twice the human population of Bainbridge, the southwest Georgia town where the plans have been proposed.
City and county officials are said to already be in the process of trying to secure the construction of the facility, by agreeing to more than $58 million in handouts including a 20-year tax abatement scheme and 200 acres of public land.
The site is set to cost $396 million, and once up-and-running, will breed long-tailed macaques who will be sold to pharmaceutical companies that use the animals in animal tests and experiments.
A long-tailed macaque at a breeding facility in Cambodia. Image supplied to Species Unite
“The nearly $400 million dollars being spent on this facility could instead be used on human-relevant research methods to cure diseases in humans,” said Elizabeth Novogratz, founder and president of Species Unite, which has launched the petition. “If this monkey breeding facility is built, the citizens of Bainbridge will suffer, the environment will suffer and tens of thousands of monkeys will suffer. The very idea of this monkey farm is an atrocity for everyone except the company behind it, who will profit enormously.”
Big Risks to Humans, the Environment, and the Animals
The company behind the plans, Safer Human Medicine, is led by former executives of other key companies that specialize in sourcing animals for animal testing. These include Charles River Laboratories, which is currently under civil and criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, after it was revealed that monkeys in U.S. labs had been illegally caught from the wild and smuggled from Cambodia.
Worryingly, there is no precedent for a breeding-facility of this size in the U.S. The next largest similar facility is located in Texas and cages between 6,000 to 11,000 monkeys.
“The cost that this community is going to bear when they drop 30,000 monkeys into an environment that has no business holding 30,000 monkeys. It’s their tax dollars, it’s their backyards, it’s their environment. They’re the ones bearing the risks,” explains PETA primate scientist Dr. Lisa Jones-Engel.
Macaques huddled together at a macaque breeding facility, Laos, 2011. Credit: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals
PETA, who is among those helping to campaign against the plans, points out that at full capacity the proposed facility would produce more than 444,000 gallons of wastewater including the feces, urine and other fluids from 30,000 caged monkeys. The landsite is just half a mile from the Flint River, which provides water for crop irrigation and ultimately flows into the Gulf of Mexico.
As well as these environmental concerns, there is a human health risk too.
Last year, an outbreak of tuberculosis was uncovered in monkeys at a Michigan laboratory, which some residents worry could indicate that harmful and deadly pathogens could spread from the breeding facility’s monkeys over to humans in the local area.
There have also been frequent cases of monkeys escaping from breeding centers around the country. That danger is heightened when linked with the significant increase in monkeys arriving at these facilities infected with dangerous illnesses such as Ebola-like viruses, tuberculosis, malaria and other deadly pathogens that can spread to humans.
Take action now: join Species Unite and add your name to our petition to help stop the biggest monkey breeding facility in the US from being built. Sign the petition here.
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